Many conventional products, including but not limited to microelectronics components, often include a wide variety of coating materials. These coating materials are used in an attempt enhance performance of the product or increase product reliability. Coatings are often used to correct for a known deficiency within the product itself. For example, a thermal coating can be added to help dissipate heat from a specific area of a product to prevent it from overheating during use. In another example, a protective coating may be used to enhance the reliability or manufacturability (e.g., processing windows) of the product itself.
These coatings may be organic or inorganic materials. Conventional organic coatings absorb moisture, ultraviolet (UV) radiation, etc. Moisture can degrade the coatings and/or the material interfaces they connect through chemical decomposition, material expansion, etc. Other factors such as elevated temperature, ozone, ultraviolet light, etc. can also degrade organic coating materials. In addition, organic-based coatings conventionally have coefficients of thermal expansion on the order of 100 ppm/degrees Celsius, which can lead to adhesion and/or cohesion failures when products are subjected to temperature variations. These types of degradation of the coating or device can limit suitability for use in harsh environments and can lead to failures during the operational lifetime of the devices. Application of conventional inorganic coatings may require expensive and/or high-stress environments, such as chemical vapor deposition, or very high processing temperatures.
Further, circuits are conventionally mounted to circuit boards and other substrates using soldered joints. Due to concerns with disposal of lead-based solders, the solder may often be a lead-free solder. Lead-free assemblies often contain components that have a surface finish of electroplated tin, which may have a tendency to develop “whiskers” or filaments that grow out of tin. Such whiskers can cause electrical shorting if the filaments extend to other metal surfaces or can undesirably coat and adhere to adjacent surfaces. In addition to electronic substrates that use tin surface finishes, other metal surfaces often have metal coatings of materials such as tin, cadmium, or zinc that can also produce similar whisker filaments.
In various devices such as a magnetic resonance imaging devices or nuclear magnetic resonance devices, the device may be liquid cooled. The liquid coolant is typically high purity deionized water and must remain highly pure and non-conductive in order to prevent deterioration of the readings made by the device. Corrosion of the coolant system by the coolant liquid can lead to a decrease in the purity of the cooling liquid and subsequent increase in conductivity and degradation of device performance.
Therefore, a need exists for a material that can coat surfaces in a reliable manner and that is not susceptible to harsh environments. A need also exists for a material for coating a surface that is capable of providing protection from moisture as well as from breakdown by various forms of radiation (such as UV). A need also exists for a material or method for coating surfaces with finishes of materials such as tin, cadmium, zinc, etc. so they do not whisker. A need also exists for a material that will prevent the internal corrosion of liquid cooling systems and maintain a high level of cooling fluid purity and resistivity within it. A need also exists for a material that can be processed and cured at temperatures less than 200 degrees Celsius.